


golden child (tell me what it's like to burn)

by bisexualhotchner



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Anal Sex, Canonical Character Death, Discussion of Abortion, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Grim Reapers, Infidelity, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Mild Gore, Murder-Suicide, Non-Consensual Kissing, Original Character Death(s), Overdosing, Pedophilia, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts, The sexual content is not underage, Vomiting, there's a lot of death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:19:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25049044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bisexualhotchner/pseuds/bisexualhotchner
Summary: Ryouta was six when he first saw him.Kise is fourteen when he falls in love with him.He's twenty when he wants to see him again."kise falls in love with grim reaper kuroko and murders people just so he can see kuroko again."
Relationships: Aomine Daiki/Kise Ryouta, Kise Ryouta/Kuroko Tetsuya
Comments: 8
Kudos: 52





	golden child (tell me what it's like to burn)

**Author's Note:**

> The title's been inspired by a poem written by @madzieloss on Tumblr that I came across a few years ago and I still think about it every day. I'll quote the whole thing in the end notes, until then there is a few disclaimers:  
> \- Pedophilia and underage is not some ""kink"" of mine. It's gross shit and I only wrote it for plot device. The tags are triggers warnings, not a call to indulge. Please don't touch my work if you support that kind of thing.  
> \- As to what exactly does that entail, a 20-something-year-old makes out with 14 year old Kise. It is implied that he did not consent.  
> \- AoKise is in the tags but it's a KiseKuro piece. I'm sorry!  
> \- This is not a happy story.

There’s something wrong with his aunt. She’s sleeping, but not quite, her body still and motionless under the covers. Ryouta expects some quiet snoring, but no sound or movement shows any kind of breathing from her. She’s turning his back to him, not even reacting to the light that floods the guest room when he pushes the door open.

‘Auntie, wake up!’ Ryouta exclaims, chirping excitedly before he notices that something’s off.

‘Auntie?’ his expression turns cautious, small brows pulling together on his sweet, round child-face. Where he would normally jump on the bed, he now comes closer with fear in his heart, eyes fixed on the back of his aunt’s head where her blonde hair is tangled and messed up in her sleep. ‘Auntie, please-‘

‘I’m sorry, but can you please leave the room? You’re way too young to be witnessing this sort of thing.’

Ryouta jumps at the voice that sounds too close yet so far away at the same time. He turns around to look in the corner, the blood draining from his face when he finds a person standing there.

His first instinct is fear, but his first conscious thought is that he’s beautiful. He’s glowing in such a pretty light as the translucent white curtains in his mom’s room do when sunlight hits them early in the morning. He wears black slacks and a black shirt which contrasts his pale white skin, almost transparent to Ryouta’s eyes as the person walks to him and crouches down to get on his eye level. And his eyes and hair are both like the skies on a clear, warm, spring afternoon.

There’s a soft smile on his lips when he brushes Ryouta’s bangs out of his face and cups his cheek, his touch comforting but so cold and faint that he barely feels it.

‘What did you do to auntie?’ Ryouta asks, his voice quivering with the premise of a sob.

‘I don’t do anything.’ The person says, calm and soothing. ‘I merely came to take her away.’

  
‘I don’t want you to take auntie away.’

‘I’m sorry, that isn’t your decision. She’s already crossed over to the other side, and she awaits my guidance.’

Ryouta starts crying. He stumbles forward, clutching the person’s clothes, allowing him to comfort him with the ghostly strokes of his palm on his back, head and arms. The stranger shushes him and tenderly kisses his forehead.

‘I wish you didn’t remember me, Kise Ryouta-kun.’ he finally murmurs when Ryouta’s calmed down enough, wiping away the streaks of tears left on his soft cheeks. ‘But I’m aware that fate and memory can both trick mortal souls. Please, take care of yourself. I wouldn’t like to meet again very soon.’

_What a strange guy_ , Ryouta sniffs as he stumbles out the open door to tell his parents that something had happened to his aunt.

_It’s usually ‘I’d like to meet you soon.’_

Ryouta is six when he first sees him.

Kise was fourteen when he met Aomine.

Kise was also fourteen when he saw _him_ again. It was a few weeks after he’d become a regular at the basketball team, and he was invited out to a gathering with his fellow models – mostly older folks who knew how to drive, how to drink, and how to properly indulge in all the bohemian wonders of life without ever losing their shape. It wasn’t healthy and it wasn’t good, and Kise found himself holding one of his female colleague’s hair as she made herself throw up after eating out and having a bit too much to drink.

‘Shall we get going?’ the woman asked him when she straightened up, lipstick and mascara smudged, among other things, on her artificially attractive face. Kise smiled at her, a well-practiced yet fake gesture.

‘Go where?’

‘I know a place.’ she winked, turning to the bathroom sink to get washed up and fix her makeup in the mirror. There was a strange feeling in the pit of Kise’s stomach, like he wasn’t supposed to go, wasn’t even supposed to be here. His hazy brain brought up the word _fate_ in his mind, wondering where that even came from as he turned back to the toilet to flush it.

There was a girl in his lap, kissing him hotly with tongue. Kise remembered her to be in her twenties, but he couldn’t remember if she threw up before or not. Her mouth still tasted of alcohol, some bitter stuff Kise recognized as cigarette smoke, and the remnants of her dinner. It was gross and awful and Kise found himself becoming nauseated with how the girl was pushing her saliva into his mouth, fisting his hair. Someone lit another cigarette beside them, and it smelled of spices. Another person seated beside the driver was violently sniffing something.

There was a girl in his lap, and then there wasn’t. There was a shriek, and the sharp sound of tires screeching, glass breaking and flying everywhere.

Kise came to a few minutes later. There was an absolute wreck of a car in front of him, pools of what he could faintly recognize as blood all around it. _They’d- the girl who proposed going away-_

He scrambled to his feet, his head pounding, his shoulder and ankles flaring up as he moved. There was so much, _so much fucking blood_. The girl that climbed on him flew through the windshield and against the pole they drove into, her skull cracked open, the insides – oh God, the insides were spilling out. A man was holding his face with two hands, blood gushing from under his fingers. He was sniffing some sort of powder from a razor blade, driving it straight through his upper lip and into his gums on the impact.

Kise felt sick. He couldn’t bear to see the others; he stumbled further on shaky legs to empty the contents of his stomach, realizing that he hadn’t had anything to eat in hours when he got to it. He just heaved, spitting on the ground, finally falling to his knees, finally giving in to the disgust and agony that had been pulling at his insides all evening.

‘I haven’t seen you in quite a long time, Kise Ryouta-kun.’ A familiar voice from his childhood called out. Kise’s eyes snapped open, only to find the same man he’d been dreaming of since his aunt died. He’d told himself it wasn’t real, but the same face, the same sweet smile, the same caring touch had circled back into his subconscious to haunt him in his sleep.

‘You’re not,’ Kise started, stopping to take a shaky, rattling breath. ‘you aren’t real.’

‘That’s true. I only exist in your mind.’ The guy hummed, crouching down in front of him the same way he did when Kise was younger, and smaller, and less rotten. ‘You wish it was the case, don’t you?’

Kise tipped his head up to look him in the eye, something straining horribly in his neck as he did so, the pain reaching down to his probably popped shoulder. ‘Are you going to take me this time?’

He chuckled, and it sounded like a melody. ‘Not yet. You’re badly hurt, but you should still live. I just wish you would take better care of yourself, like I advised you to.’

‘I do-‘ Kise tried, doubling over and hitting his forehead against the concrete. He was hurt. He was in so much pain. Part of him wished it was over, part of him wanted to go with him, stay with him, bask in his ethereal glow.

The man looked at him with pity in his gorgeous, blue eyes. ‘You don’t.’ he said sympathetically, sitting down beside him and putting his palm on his back, the same way he did when he was a kid. _Was his hand always this small?_

‘Are you going to take all of them?’

‘Help is on its’ way. I’m taking whoever passes away until then.’ he murmured, stroking Kise’s shivering back all the way up to the nape of his neck, and then down to his waist. When he reached up, the tips of his fingers brushed against his skin and Kise went cold all over. ‘The girl who forced herself on you won’t survive.’

Kise felt even worse when he realized that he was relieved to hear that. His chest heaved with a strained exhale.

‘Who are you?’

‘Grim reaper. Death. According to your culture, you might know me better as a shinigami.’

_I guessed as much._ ‘Do you have a name?’

The man fell silent for a moment. His hand stilled in the middle of Kise’s back. ‘I’d like for you to call me Kuroko.’

‘ _Kuro_ ko.’ Kise snorted, ducking his head down so he could take a sarcastic peek at the man’s black attire. The entity shrugged, smiling at him enigmatically.

‘May we not meet again until your end, Kise-kun.’

Kise fell unconscious with a tremendous amount of love in his heart.

When he woke up and saw Aomine’s worried expression, it was so easy to direct it at him.

‘You’re awake!’ Aomine gasped, leaning closer to the hospital bed. ‘Kise, can you hear me?’

‘Yeah I do, dummy.’ Kise mumbled, his eyes trying to adjust to the harsh lights. ‘And you’re annoying, shut up.’

‘Man, I was so worried.’ he laughed, masking a sob as his hand shot out to touch Kise’s arm. Kise looked back at him in awe. Aomine, worried? For him? He _cared_ about him? ‘I didn’t know- The doc said that you’d be fine, but then I saw you and I-‘

He seemed to be at loss for words. Kise gulped, his throat suddenly feeling very dry. His eyes stayed fixated on Aomine’s face, his heart beating harder when he noticed the slight tremble of his lips, the furrow in his brows, the strange redness to his eyes.

‘Aominecchi.’ Kise whispered. His friend’s eyes met his own, and sparks flew. Kise felt as if someone had poured a bucket of ice-cold water on him from behind, every part of his body tingling and buzzing and his skin tightening with unabashed need.

Aomine moved first, his chapped lips pressing against Kise’s own. It wasn’t demanding, nor invasive – compared to the last kiss he’s received, this felt much more like a question than a statement. Kise’s eyes fluttered close, pushing back against Aomine’s mouth, shivering nervously. He let out a small gasp in turn, raising his hand and gingerly clutching at Kise’s scrubs on his shoulder.

‘Ouch.’ Kise groaned when his fingers brushed against the bruise on his shoulder. Aomine pulled back immediately, but not entirely – he was still holding onto him for dear life.

‘Sorry… shit.’ he said, laughing nervously, his pupils blown wide.

‘Eloquent, Aominecchi.’ Kise noted, unable to hold back his own smile. He bit his lip, and he tasted Aomine on it; Diet Coke, ham sandwich and pure energy. For a moment, they stared at each other, both of their eyes glinting before they started to giggle like the schoolboys they were.

‘Shut up.’ Aomine chuckled, cupping Kise’s cheek with the hand that held onto his robe. ‘How’s this for eloquent?’

His palm was hot on his cooled skin, his mouth restless and alive on his lips as he bent down and kissed him again.

Kise graduated Touou Gakuen with Aominecchi and immediately went on to become a full-time model and part-time actor. Due to his and Momocchi’s nagging, Aomine accepted a sports scholarship at a Tokyo-based college. He dropped out after the second semester.

He huffed out a shaky breath, bending down to lean his forehead against Aomine’s shoulder. He kissed his sweat-soaked chest softly, nuzzling into his skin.

‘You’re so tight,’ he said like a complaint. Aomine cursed and shuddered under him, fingers digging into his back.

‘Whose fuckin’- _ah_ , fault is that?!’

‘You begged me to get on with it.’ Kise mumbled, reaching down to soothe the pain with gentle strokes on the outsides of Aomine’s thighs. He hissed when the movement shifted the angle just slightly, Kise’s member digging into his walls.

‘And you like it when I stretch you with my cock, don’t you?’ he purred, licking one brown, pert nipple into his mouth and sucking harshly. Aomine arched his back, moaning out and almost throwing Kise off of his chest with the intensity of it.

‘Just- God, just _move already_.’ he gasped, driving his blunt nails into Kise’s shoulders when he finally obliged, pulling out and rocking back in. Aomine writhed under him with his head thrown back, breathing hard and fast and letting out these harsh moans in between, the _ah ah ah_ s that spilled from his lips echoing off the walls and inside of Kise’s head, driving him crazy when they increased in volume, their solidarity for the neighbors permanently thrown out the window.

They’ve been together since middle school. Six years with Aomine changes you as a person, as Kise jokingly used to say to his work friends who questioned his seemingly unusual rudeness at times. Aomine was as a good excuse as any to whoever spent more than five minutes with him in the same room, but the truth was that Kise was just getting tired of putting on a face and nodding along. It had virtually nothing to do with who he was in a relationship with, but people rarely seemed to comprehend that a nice person can run out of kindness.

When he was a kid, he tried very hard to forget about the person he saw in his aunt’s room. Whenever he thought about the soft glow that surrounded him, he tried to direct his mind elsewhere, and the harder he tried not to think about him, the harder the person seemed to creep into his thoughts. Sometimes he thought he saw him in the crowd, swallowing thickly and averting his gaze, telling himself _‘it was a dream, it was just a bad dream’._ But his aunt was still dead, and he remembered the encounter with her corpse as vividly as he remembered the person with blue hair, blue eyes and the most magnetic presence Kise had ever felt.

After the car crash in middle school however, Kise gave up on trying to erase him from his memories. He thought about him often – about Kurokocchi, the way he called him in his mind –, even more often when he was with Aomine. He compared the heat radiating off of Aomine’s body to the faint, empty, airy feeling of hugging him, the scorching warmth of his skin against his own to the cool palm that’s pressed against his cheek.

‘Kise, not here.’ Aomine grunted. He was laying face down on the bed, the pillow he buried his face into muffling his words. Either he heard the click of the lighter or he had some kind of superhuman smelling abilities, because there was no way he could smell the smoke from there.

‘It’s Ryouta, ‘ssu.’ Kise replied with a small smile, reaching down to pinch the back of Aomine’s thigh just under his ass. Aomine jerked and swung his heel back to kick him, but he pulled his hand away, chuckling to himself. He took a long drag of his cigarette, attempting a few smoke rings before momentarily shrouding himself in a cloud of grey smoke with a sharp exhale.

Aomine lifted himself up on his elbows, looking at Kise with an unimpressed glare. ‘You still use that stupid ‘Aominecchi’ of yours, too.’

‘Yes, but I rather call you Daiki when it’s just the two of us.’ Kise hummed, reaching for the ashtray on his bedside table and placing it on his knee. ‘Besides, what are you going to call me when I’ll marry you?’

‘Kise!’ Aomine hissed, blushing across his handsome face. Kise looked at him with sympathy in his eyes.

‘We’ve been dating for a long time. Sooner or later, we should get engaged if we really love each other.’ he said, putting the cigarette in his mouth one last time for a quick puff and then putting it out on the side of the ashtray. ‘Can I eat you out? I want to eat you out.’

‘You just came in my ass.’ Aomine reminded him, his blush deepening.

‘I want to eat it out of you.’ Kise grinned coyly. He leaned over him, licking into his open mouth and claiming it in a filthy kiss. He sucked, noisily, releasing Aomine’s tongue with a pop and immediately driving back in to bite at his lips.

‘You’re disgusting.’ Aomine mumbled, choking on a moan when Kise reached down to squeeze his ass in one of his hands, his thumb already inching towards his loosened entrance. He pushed against him, already a mess. ‘ _Please_ , Ryouta.’

It was 3:47 in the morning when his phone buzzed with a simple text. Kise was still awake.

[‘I can’t take it anymore’]

The sender was a phone number he didn’t bother to save into his contacts, yet Kise recognized it right away. He sighed, climbing out of bed with the least hassle he could manage, untangling himself from Aomine’s arms.

‘Where ya goin’?’ Aomine mumbled in his sleep. Kise leaned back down to kiss his temple where his hair was so adorably mussed up.

‘Don’t worry, it won’t take long.’ _But this could be interesting._

Hana-chan was really cute when Kise met her at age 17 – she was 24 back then, still at the peak of her career. Since then, she’d developed a drug habit, had an abortion, started to lose modeling jobs to younger women, and she blamed all of this on Kise.

Out of the three, Kise was only responsible for one.

They didn’t really have an affair, or at least that’s not what Kise would’ve called it. He called her when he was free and wanted someone with more curves and a wetter hole than Aomine’s, and she called him when she was feeling lonely and decided to be deeply and irrevocably in love with him. That one was Kise’s fault, because he’s been too nice to her, he had to admit. He even went with her to the clinic, holding her hand through the entirety of the procedure and telling her that he would take good care of her just to comfort her. In all honesty, he didn’t really care if Hana-chan lived or died, but Kise was raised to be a decent person.

It was an unfortunate turn of events that he’d been stripped of his decency for so long.

He let himself in with the spare key Hana-chan gave him over a year ago, not even bothering to strip himself of his shoes or his coat as he expertly found his way to the bedroom. She was there, sobbing into her arm in the middle of the bed, her bedside table bearing a small bag of powder, a blackened silver spoon, a lighter and an empty syringe.

Kise sighed, climbing on the bed and lying down beside her, pulling her against his chest with just one arm.

‘Don’t touch me, Ryouta.’ she growled through her hiccups, fisting her hands in his shirt with the intention to push him away. She was way too weak to even make him budge. ‘You took everything away from me.’

‘You still got your fake lashes and waterproof mascara.’ Kise joked, earning him another weak shove.

‘I want it to stop. I want-, everything, to stop. I just don’t want to live anymore.’

‘What would you have named them?’ he asked, reaching up to slowly stroke through her messy, brown hair. Hana-chan raised her head to look at him, her eyes glassy and out of focus.

‘Wha- who?’

‘Our baby, if you didn’t choose your career over them.’ Kise murmured, not an ounce of blame in his voice. ‘I wanted them to be Tetsuya, if it’s a boy. If it’s a girl, probably Asa-chan, after my aunt.’

Hana-chan blinked at him slowly, relaxing in his embrace. ‘Asa-chan sounds sweet.’ she smiled. ‘Were you close with your aunt?’

‘She died when I was a kid. I found her in the morning the next day.’ Kise shrugged. ‘She took sedatives and drank wine. Guess it wasn’t a wise choice to mix them.’

‘Oh. I didn’t know…’

‘It’s not something I’d tell the tabloids.’ he smiled, brushing Hana’s hair out of her face. ‘But I’m telling you, because you’re dear to me. Can you fall asleep now?’

‘Will you be here when I wake up?’

‘I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.’

He didn’t always lie this blatantly to Hana-chan.

At the time when she got pregnant, Kise was ready to own up to it. He’d wanted it, even – wanted to break up with Aomine, marry this semi-nice girl, father a child and retire early. He could still be a celebrity, find himself something to do; write a screenplay, seek out more acting roles, hell, maybe he could have been a pilot, basically anything and everything was an open door for him with his looks and skills.

He’d picked out an engagement ring the same day Hana-chan told him that she wanted the baby gone. He thought about it on sleepless nights, as he thought about it right now, looking down at her sleeping face and trying to imagine how their unborn child would look like at this time, two years after their conception. They’d be having mops of dirty blond hair, a bubbly personality with constant chatter and ear-piercing giggling, and they would have Hana-chan’s beautiful baby blue eyes.

Kise thought about Kuroko, and a decision – reckless, wrong, and utterly shameful – formed in his mind. He shuffled around a little, lifting himself off and over Hana’s body, reaching a bit more freely for the bedside table when he’d gotten settled again behind her. He took the spoon, scooping up a fairly generous amount of the powder from the open bag, holding it over his lighter and moving it in small circles.

He felt nothing but a faint sense of anticipation when he pushed the needle and its contents into her arm. He wiped everything on the edge of his shirt, placing them back on the drawer and lying back down behind Hana-chan. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer as she started shivering and then heaving, the sounds of unbounded retching loud and disgusting to his ears.

It was over before he knew it. Half an hour later, he was clutching a lifeless body in his arms, warm and fiery Hana-chan now cold and rigid in his hold. Kise laid there with his eyes open, waiting, hoping, his insides quivering with anticipation.

‘Did you do that on purpose?’ he asked with horror in his voice. Kise lazily untangled himself from around Hana-chan’s corpse, sitting up and smiling at Kuroko.

‘Good evening, Kurokocchi. Thanks for showing up.’

‘I would have preferred it if I didn’t have to.’ His blue eyes were stormy with anger. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘Like you care about right or wrong.’ Kise snorted. ‘You’re a shinigami.’

‘I _help_ the souls of the deceased.’ Kuroko raised his voice. ‘I’ve never killed anybody.’

‘And that’s somehow not immoral?’

‘I stand above morality.’

‘No one stands above morality.’ Kise pointed out with a smirk. ‘You knew damn well what would happen to me when we first met, didn’t you?’

Kuroko fell silent. He let his gaze drop onto the girl on the bed, glaring at Kise’s handiwork with unmasked wrath.

‘No one stays sane after an encounter with a shinigami.’ he said easily. ‘That’s kind of your whole deal. You touch someone and they immediately start to waste away somehow. It’s a miracle I’m even breathing…’

‘Stop.’ Kuroko sounded wrecked. He shut his eyes forcefully, turning his head away. ‘I never- I didn’t know- Kise-kun, I wished you no harm. I just merely wanted to comfort an upset child, I-‘

‘Don’t sweat it.’ Kise stood up, stepping in front of him and grabbing his chin. He was so much taller than him now, the angle from up close just faintly reminding him of the figure he saw as a kid. His blue eyes were still gorgeous, more gorgeous than Hana-chan’s have ever been when she was alive. They widened and stared at him as he leaned down, breathing life onto cold lips. ‘Just touch me more, Kurokocchi.’

The kiss was gentle like a breeze. Kuroko felt soft and barely-there, with only the slight caress of his mouth moving against his own reminding Kise that this was real, and it was really happening. His childhood self was wrong – Kuroko _was_ real, and he was sweeter and softer than cotton candy. His hands ghosted along the lines of Kise’s jaw, and he pressed into him harder, clutching his shoulders for dear life.

‘Have you heard all those stories of mortals falling for ghosts?’ Kuroko asked him, quietly gasping for air after their separation, leaning his forehead against Kise’s. Kise opened his eyes, mesmerized by his radiant, white skin, drinking in the sight of him.

‘I don’t believe in fairy tales.’ he said, ducking his head to press small kisses along Kuroko’s smiling mouth. His lips parted, and Kise immediately sealed his mouth over them, feeling his tongue up with his own and shivering when he felt its coolness move against him.

‘They’re not fairy tales.’ Kuroko whispered, placing his hand above Kise’s heart. ‘Because they never end well.’

Aomine proposed to him a week after Hana-chan’s death.

A year later, they got married. The wedding was in July, the honeymoon destination was Bali, and Kise spent all four days sunbathing, messing around in the clear, transparent blue water that faintly reminded him of someone else, and admiring Aomine’s naked body.

He loved him more than ever, clinging to him and listening to his every word whether he complained about bugs or rude reception (frankly, he was just mad that he couldn’t speak English with them), rambled about the last NBA season, or whispered sweet nothings into his ear in return for his undivided attention. They’d watched the stars, went swimming naked in the dead of the night and kissed under the moonlight, saltwater stinging their lips like an unwelcome third party. Aomine kissed his neck and worshipped him and trapped him in his overwhelming heat, and all Kise could do was to lay back and love the man he’d sworn to love for a while.

Aomine Ryouta is a twenty-five year old accomplished actor, director and screenwriter, a retired model and a gay icon for being famous and open about his marriage to his long-time friend. Aomine Ryouta is also a serial cheater, a liar and a murderer.

Daiki doesn’t work, because he doesn’t have to, and he doesn’t want to. He spends most of his time hanging out at the local basketball courts, playing against anyone who dares to challenge him and showing a few moves to the kids who admire him. When he’s had enough of Ryouta, he rolls his eyes and heads over to Satsuki’s place to hang and get away from him. Sometimes, when he comes home around midnight, his mouth is glistening with lip gloss.

The day after those occasions, he always buys Ryouta flowers with Ryouta’s money. It’s usually a huge, luxurious bouquet, because Daiki is one of those people who look for discounts except when it comes to basketball gear or an apology gift. Ryouta knows that it’s coming because Daiki’s also a creature of habit, and because he gets a text message whenever Daiki makes a purchase with his card.

Daiki loves him, and he tells him so. Over the phone when he’s away shooting some movie at another part of the country, in the kitchen when he makes him an omelet for breakfast, in the bed when Ryouta is gasping and moaning under him.

For almost ten years, Ryouta wished that it was enough, but it’s not. Ryouta’s heart had long belonged to someone else, somewhere else, and there’s no denying it – especially when he feels close to nothing when he sees Daiki smile at him, gets a load of his precious love for him.

He knows he doesn’t cheat because he loves Momoi over him. If he did, he would’ve done something sooner, he would’ve left him for Momoi before they got married. For Daiki, she’s just a safe haven, a place he can drop his love and affection since Ryouta seems indifferent to it, have been for over five years.

Not a day goes by that Ryouta doesn’t think about Kuroko and that kiss so tender and raw, despite his weak presence, that it felt like brushing over a bruise. He yearns for him with an ache so profound and deep that it’s the only thing that seems to light a fire in him after all these years, every other emotion dull and meaningless. He thinks about him when he touches himself, he thinks about him when Daiki touches him, he thinks about him when he tries to find a reason to go on and he thinks about him when he tries to find a reason to not have a future.

‘Don’t you want kids?’ Daiki asks him over dinner, but he isn’t being hopeful. If anything, he sounds exasperated.

Ryouta feels Hana-chan’s grip around his hand, the memory of the touch almost physically pulling on his skin. ‘Not really, no.’ he smiles up at him, empty and fake. He doesn’t return the question.

Ryouta is twenty-five years old when he murders Aomine in his sleep.

The decision comes easy to him, even easier than it did when he overdosed Hana. One minute, he’s watching his husband’s sleeping face from up close, trying to find traces of Kuroko’s looks on him and grimacing with obvious disappointment when he fails to do so. The other, he’s stumbling into the kitchen, finding their sharpest knife in the cabinet, and soon he’s straddling Aomine’s waist, his hand planted on his chest and the other holding the blade flush against his throat.

Cutting is easy. Trying to prevent the sputtering blood from getting into his eyes and staying atop his writhing body is harder as the muscles instinctively fight for survival as the life drains from him, the trashing and tossing and clutching and kicking slowly degrading into weakening twitches. Ryouta looks at him from under his soaked bangs, pushing them slightly to the side with an elegant movement of his wrist and finding Aomine’s eyes wide open in shock, his lips parted around his last, wheezing gasp for breath, pulling sickeningly on the open wound across his throat.

Ryouta doesn’t bother washing up when he goes out to the balcony for a smoke. He stares at the city lights, smells its ripe air through the iron-heavy stench of blood. The stars are barely visible from pollution, but he closes his eyes and imagines the night sky as it was on the near-untouched beaches of Bali. His memory brings the clear water and Aomine’s devoted kisses into the picture as well, and Ryouta feels his head spin.

‘Good evening, Kise Ryouta-kun.’ Kuroko calls out to him when he’s halfway through his second cigarette. Ryouta smiles at the way he’s been addressed.

‘I’m married, Kurokocchi. Don’t you remember?’

‘I believe that’s not true anymore.’ he says calmly, walking over to sit down by Ryouta’s feet. Ryouta glances down at him, chuckling to himself and pushing a bloodied hand through Kuroko’s soft hair.

‘Didn’t you love him?’

‘I could have. In another life.’ Ryouta shrugs, lifting his cigarette to his mouth. ‘You ruined me for every kind of love that could’ve come my way.’

‘I’m deeply sorry about that.’

For a long minute, there’s silence between them. Ryouta thinks back on his life, if he would’ve preferred to know real love over Kuroko’s haunting, and wonders if there was an answer to that, could he be rational about it? Kuroko thinks, too. Kuroko’s thoughts are bigger than the known Universe, and twice as complicated.

‘Will it hurt?’ Ryouta asks. His voice doesn’t shake. He’s never felt calmer.

‘It depends on how you do it. Some methods kill you quick enough that you don’t even feel your heart rate slowing.’ Kuroko stands up and presses up against his chest. Ryouta sighs and embraces a ghost.

‘I guess I’ve always had an affinity for being dramatic.’ he grins, weak and tired and pale. Kuroko kisses him. His mouth feels alive. It tastes of blood.

‘I have been made aware of that, Kise-kun.’ Kuroko smiles back at him, matting down his hair that’s already clumping with drying blood.

‘Please wait for me.’ Ryouta says, walking through the apparition and over the railing of the balcony.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for the fic is courtesy of @ashenchevalier on Tumblr. I'm not sure you're still in the fandom but your post was extremely inspiring so thank you!!!  
> And madzieloss's poem in its entirety: 
> 
> "Golden child,  
> Lion boy;  
> Tell me what it’s like to conquer.
> 
> Fearless child,  
> Broken boy;  
> Tell me what it’s like to burn."


End file.
